Harmful armchair diagnosis (but not self-diagnosis) of ASD

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19 Jul 2015, 4:07 pm

This thread is to provide links to sources where the author, or someone quoted, engages in unqualified and harmful armchair diagnosis of ASD. I don't mean to include self-diagnosers in this thread, because it's not the point of what I'm trying to capture. By "harmful," I mean where it stereotypes (positive or negative) autistic people or creates unwarranted negative associations with ASD.

One example to start us off:

Quote:

That's one of the most cringey things I've seen in a long time. Dude has Autism.

http://www.reddit.com/r/GenderCritical/ ... ke/ct8su8m

This goes beyond just this and discusses cowards and loners, associating them with autism. These are the same people who will say that, for example, telling a man he "throw[s] like a girl" is either misogynistic or sexist, but they are happy to throw out the word autism, despite being completely unqualified to do so, when someone is doing something they find wrong. One might say they are hateful of autistic people.

If any of you find any examples, then please post them here and explain how they are harmful armchair diagnoses (but not self-diagnoses!) of ASD.

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btbnnyr
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19 Jul 2015, 4:17 pm

AS partners website has some disgruntled people in crappy relationships armchair diagnosing their spouses with autism.

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SocOfAutism
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19 Jul 2015, 5:31 pm

btbnnyr wrote:

AS partners website has some disgruntled people in crappy relationships armchair diagnosing their spouses with autism.

I sometimes hear people saying that other people who are "not empathetic" "might be autistic." For one, I think it's pretty hard to gauge another person's empathy toward anyone else. For another, empathy and autism don't have much to do with one another, despite popular opinion. I don't have anyone to specifically cite, but it's just an example that came to mind.

ASPartOfMe
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19 Jul 2015, 7:20 pm

Disability groups blast use of Asperger’s to insult Netanyahu. Organizations bristle at administration officials’ derogatory reference to syndrome; White House apologizes

Liberman panned for calling Netanyahu ‘autistic’

Katie Hopkins accuses Ed Miliband of being 'on the spectrum' following Labour leader's debate performance

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/Politics/article1439439.ece

Quote:

ED MILIBAND, who last week confronted his failure to connect with voters, has turned to one of the world’s leading experts on autism to help boost his “political empathy”.

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League_Girl
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19 Jul 2015, 9:12 pm

I don't have a link but I once saw on the Dr. Phil page about a show where they had a violent 16 year old girl and she left tons of damage to her parents home from her explosive behavior and she was very disrespectful towards her parents and someone suggested she may have an ASD because she reminds them of her autistic students. I was offended. Suspecting someone has autism because they are violent? My mom did the same about an eight year old boy who was violent and would threaten his family with knives and my mom said "I wonder if he is autistic" after his mother said he will explode when you tell him to do something when he is in the middle of something. Then I was relieved when they said he wasn't.

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ASPartOfMe
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20 Jul 2015, 2:26 pm

League_Girl wrote:

Whenever I find out about a violent incident I wonder not if the perpetrator is autistic(as 2% of the populations odds are against it) but will said perpetrator be labeled as "having Autism" or "having Aspergers".

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20 Jul 2015, 5:00 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

I am not sure if you mean you wonder if the person is not autistic after they do something violent.

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Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.

ASPartOfMe
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20 Jul 2015, 8:11 pm

League_Girl wrote:

ASPartOfMe wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

I am not sure if you mean you wonder if the person is not autistic after they do something violent.

I wonder if the media will label the perpetrator autistic more then I wonder if the person is actually autistic. If they label the perp autistic then I wonder if it's true.

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